AMERICAN ECONOMIC HISTORY

American Economic History

American Economic History

Introduction

Before the Civil War, the greatest regional difference in the U.S. was between the South and the rest of the nation. The cornerstone of that difference was slavery. The South kept it, while between 1777 and 1804, eight Northeasters states passed laws eliminating it. There also were other differences of economic significance. For example, the South was less urbanized than the Northeast, and there were vastly fewer foreign born people, relatively and absolutely, living in the South than in any other region, but these were less significant and were related to slavery.( Robert, 1997)

Although slaves were owned by Southerners who lived in cities to work in their homes, to work trades like blacksmithing, brick lying, and in factories, the great majority were employed in agriculture, which was the dominant economic activity in the South. The South exported most of its cotton through New York, and many of its imports came through this Northern port city. Immigrants with little or no money or skills did not settle in the South because they would have to compete with slave labor, and laborers in the rest of the country were very opposed to slavery being introduced into their states for this reason. Many immigrants in the late antebellum period settled in Northern cities to work in factories. After railroads connected the Midwest with Northern ports, New Orleans lost much of the Midwestern trade to them.

Discussion

It was only about 200 years ago that very many of the world's people began to damn slavery. Historically, slavery had been practiced throughout the world, and it existed as far back as we have any knowledge of. In form, it varied from place to place and over time. Although slavery was practiced throughout the nation, in the North laws were passed that gradually eliminated it. However, some Midwestern states banned both slavery and blacks from living in them.

Although elsewhere slaves might be of the same race as were their masters and this was true in America before the arrival of whites and blacks, in the thirteen colonies and in the U.S., slaves were either Indians or Africans. The practice of enslaving Indians was abandoned because it did not work out well. The great majority of African slaves were owned by whites, but a few were owned by Indians or free Africans.

The great majority of white Southern families owned no slaves. The approximately four million slaves in 1860 were owned by about 385,000 individuals. About 72 percent of slave owners owned fewer than ten slaves. Only about 10,000 owned more than 200. About half the slaves were owned by 12 percent of slave owners. Non-slaveholding Southerners did not tend to be abolitionists. Many Southern counties called white counties due to having few or no black residents forbid blacks to reside in them. These counties' soils were relatively poor, and many were located in the mountains. There were abolitionists in the South, but as anti-slavery sentiment grew in the North, ...